page_title: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
section_title: Interests and patronage
hierarchical_section_title: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz / Interests and patronage
caption_attribution_description: English: Oil painting on canvas, Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA (Plympton 1723 - London 1792). A three-quarter-length portrait, seated, turned to left, gazing at the spectator, wearing an ermine trimmed dress, ruffled lsace sleeves, and jewelled choker necklace. Her powdered hair is dressed with pearls and a small crown. Red drape behind drawn back to the right, revealing a fluted stone pillar.
context_page_description: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was queen consort of Great Britain and Ireland from her marriage to King George III on 8 September 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which she was queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1818. She was also electress consort of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire until the promotion of her husband to king of Hanover on 12 October 1814, after which she was also queen consort of Hanover.
  Charlotte was a patron of the arts and an amateur botanist who helped expand Kew Gardens. She was distressed by her husband's bouts of physical and mental illness, which became permanent in later life and resulted in their eldest son George's appointment as Prince Regent in 1811. George III and Charlotte had 15 children in total, 13 of whom survived to adulthood. They included two future British monarchs, George IV and William IV; Charlotte, Queen of Württemberg; Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the father of Queen Victoria; and Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover.
context_section_description: King George III and Queen Charlotte were music connoisseurs with German tastes, who gave special honour to German artists and composers.  They were passionate admirers of the music of George Frideric Handel.
  In April 1764, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then aged eight, arrived in Britain with his family as part of their grand tour of Europe and remained until July 1765. The Mozarts were summoned to court on 19 May and played before a limited circle from six to ten o'clock. Johann Christian Bach, eleventh son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was then music-master to the Queen. He put difficult works of Handel, J. S. Bach, and Carl Friedrich Abel before the boy: he played them all at sight, to the amazement of those present. Afterwards, the young Mozart accompanied the Queen in an aria which she sang, and played a solo work on the flute. On 29 October, the Mozarts were in London again, and were invited to court to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the King's accession. As a memento of the royal favour, Leopold Mozart published six sonatas composed by Wolfgang, known as Mozart's Opus 3, that were dedicated to the Queen on 18 January 1765, a dedication she rewarded with a present of 50 guineas.
  Queen Charlotte was an amateur botanist who took a great interest in Kew Gardens. In an age of discovery, when such travellers and explorers as Captain James Cook and Sir Joseph Banks were constantly bringing home new species and varieties of plants, she ensured that the collections were greatly enriched and expanded. Her interest in botany led to the South African flower, the Bird of Paradise, being named Strelitzia reginae in her honour.
  Among the royal couple's favoured craftsmen and artists were the cabinetmaker William Vile, silversmith Thomas Heming, the landscape designer Capability Brown, and the German painter Johann Zoffany, who frequently painted the king and queen and their children in charmingly informal scenes, such as a portrait of Queen Charlotte and her children as she sat at her dressing table. In 1788 the royal couple visited the Worcester Porcelain Factory (founded in 1751, and later to be known as Royal Worcester), where Queen Charlotte ordered a porcelain service that was later renamed "Royal Lily" in her honour. Another well-known porcelain service designed and named in her honour was the "Queen Charlotte" pattern.
  The queen founded orphanages and, in 1809, became the patron (providing new funding) of the General Lying-in Hospital, a hospital for expectant mothers. It was subsequently renamed as the Queen's Hospital, and is today the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital. The education of women was of great importance to her, and she ensured that her daughters were better educated than was usual for young women of the day; however, she also insisted that her daughters live restricted lives close to their mother, and she refused to allow them to marry until they were well-advanced in years. As a result, none of her daughters had legitimate issue (one, Princess Sophia, may have had an illegitimate son).
  Up until 1788, portraits of Charlotte often depict her in maternal poses with her children, and she looks young and contented; however, in that year her husband fell seriously ill and became temporarily insane. It is now thought that the King was suffering from porphyria, but at the time the cause of the King's illness was unknown. Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of her at this time marks a transition point, after which she looks much older in her portraits; the Assistant Keeper of Charlotte's Wardrobe, Mrs. Papendiek, wrote that the Queen was "much changed, her hair quite grey".
caption: Queen Charlotte in Robes of State, by Joshua Reynolds, 1779
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